Raymond set to rejig businesses, put professional boards in place

The Raymond Group, with interests in textiles, apparels and realty, is working toward reorganising its businesses into five core revenue streams, deploying professional boards to raise growth capital in the future.

Founded in 1925, Raymond Group will have five focused business areas including textile, fast moving consumer goods, real estate, education and engineering.

"All our boards will be completely professional in the next 12 months. Our FMCG and manufacturing companies have already done that," said Gautam Hari Singhania, chairman of the group, in an exclusive interaction with ET. "When you have an independent company with professional boards, you can do so many things including attracting private equity, going to the public by way of listing or you can exercise any other option available with you to create value for shareholders at the right time."

According to Singhania, the group had to relook at its strategy after facing huge challenges due to the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. "All the businesses are uniquely positioned in a way that bringing professional boards will help to accelerate growth," said Singhania at his 13th floor corner office in Mumbai's upscale business district of Breach Candy that overlooks the Arabian Sea.


"When you have an independent business in an independent company, then the governance structure can be independently focused. So if it's for argument's sake, for real estate...If I want to monetize that asset and I want growth capital and the kind of investor that will invest in it will be the guy who wants to invest in real estate in a very focused way. So we created these focused structures," said Singhania.

The group had literally started its real estate business during the pandemic constructing its first project at its Thane land parcel, earlier a mill land.

"We are the only real estate company that has announced the delivery date of the apartments and I'm saying it publicly so you can hold me to it that December 10 next year at 10 am we will give possession to the purchasers - two years ahead of the deadline," said Singhania.

"Like many business houses, we entered into the business primarily to develop our mill lands but in future, we will expand in other geographies as well."

Currently, Reymond Realty is developing a 1-million-sq-ft commercial project including grade A offices and high-street retail component o0n 9.5 acres out of its nearly 125-acre land parcel at Thane's Cadbury Junction.

So far, Raymond Realty has sold over 70% of the total launched inventory of nearly 2,350 units at its maiden project 10X.